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RPC.TLSSERVD(8) System Manager's Manual RPC.TLSSERVD(8)

rpc.tlsservd — Sun RPC over TLS Server Daemon

rpc.tlsservd [-2] [-C available_ciphers] [-D certdir] [-d] [-h] [-l CAfile] [-m] [-N num_servers] [-n domain] [-p CApath] [-r CRLfile] [-u] [-v] [-W] [-w]

The rpc.tlsservd program provides support for the server side of the kernel Sun RPC over TLS implementation. This daemon must be running to allow the kernel RPC to perform the TLS handshake after a TCP client has sent the STARTTLS Null RPC request to the server. This daemon requires that the kernel be built with “options KERNEL_TLS” and be running on an architecture such as “amd64” that supports a direct map (not i386) with ktls(4) enabled. Note that the -tls option in the exports(5) file specifies that the client must use RPC over TLS. The -tlscert option in the exports(5) file specifies that the client must provide a certificate that verifies. The -tlscertuser option in the exports(5) file specifies that the client must provide a certificate that verifies and has a otherName:1.3.6.1.4.1.2238.1.1.1;UTF8: field of subjectAltName of the form “user@domain” where “domain” matches the one for this server and “user” is a valid user name that maps to a <uid, gid_list>. For the latter two cases, the -m and either the -l or -p options must be specified. The -tlscertuser option also requires that the -u option on this daemon be specified.

Also, if the IP address used by the client cannot be trusted, the rules in exports(5) cannot be applied safely. As such, the -h option can be used along with -m and either the -l or -p options to require that the client certificate have the correct Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) in it.

A certificate and associated key must exist in /etc/rpc.tlsservd (or the “certdir” specified by the -D option) in files named “cert.pem” and “certkey.pem”.

If a SIGHUP signal is sent to the daemon it will reload the “CRLfile” and will shut down any extant connections that presented certificates during TLS handshake that have been revoked. If the -r option was not specified, the SIGHUP signal will be ignored.

The daemon will log failed certificate verifications via syslogd(8) using LOG_INFO | LOG_DAEMON when the -m option has been specified.

The options are as follows:

, --allowtls1_2
Permit clients to mount using TLS version 1.2. By default, the daemon will only allow mounts using TLS version 1.3, as required by the RFC. However, early FreeBSD (13.0 and 13.1) clients require this option, since they use TLS version 1.2.
available_ciphers, --ciphers=available_ciphers
Specify which ciphers are available during TLS handshake. If this option is specified, “SSL_CTX_set_ciphersuites()” will be called with “available_ciphers” as the argument. If this option is not specified, the cipher will be chosen by ssl(7), which should be adequate for most cases. The format for the available ciphers is a simple ‘:’ separated list, in order of preference. The command “openssl ciphers -s -tls1_3” lists available ciphers.
certdir, --certdir=certdir
Use “certdir” instead of /etc/rpc.tlsservd as the location for the certificate in a file called “cert.pem” and associated key in “certkey.pem”.
, --debuglevel
Run in debug mode. In this mode, rpc.tlsservd will not fork when it starts.
, --checkhost
This option specifies that the client must provide a certificate that both verifies and has a FQDN that matches the reverse DNS name for the IP address that the client uses to connect to the server. The FQDN should be in the DNS field of the subjectAltName, but is also allowed to be in the CN field of the subjectName in the certificate. By default, a wildcard "*" in the FQDN is not allowed. With this option, a failure to verify the client certificate or match the FQDN will result in the server sending AUTH_REJECTEDCRED replies to all client RPCs. This option requires the -m and either the -l or -p options.
CAfile, --verifylocs=CAfile
This option specifies the path name of a CA certificate(s) file in pem format, which is used to verify client certificates and to set the list of CA(s) sent to the client so that it knows which certificate to send to the server during the TLS handshake. This path name is used in “SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations(ctx,CAfile,NULL)” and “SSL_CTX_set_client_CA_list(ctx,SSL_load_client_CA_file(CAfile))” openssl library calls. Note that this is a path name for the file and is not assumed to be in “certdir”. Either this option or the -p option must be specified when the -m option is specified so that the daemon can verify the client's certificate.
, --mutualverf
This option specifies that the server is to request a certificate from the client during the TLS handshake. It does not require that the client provide a certificate. It should be specified unless no client doing RPC over TLS is required to have a certificate. For NFS, either the exports(5) option -tlscert or -tlscertuser may be used to require a client to provide a certificate that verifies. See exports(5).
num_servers, --numdaemons=num_servers
For a server with a large number of NFS-over-TLS client mounts, this daemon might get overloaded after a reboot, when many clients attempt to do a TLS handshake at the same time. This option may be used to specify that “num_servers” daemons are to be run instead of a single daemon. When this is done, the TLS handshakes are spread across the “num_servers” daemons in a round robin fashion to spread out the load.
domain, --domain=domain
This option specifies what the “domain” is for use with the -u option, overriding the domain taken from the gethostname(2) of the server this daemon is running on. If you have specified the -domain command line option for nfsuserd(8) then you should specify this option with the same “domain” that was specified for nfsuserd(8). This option is only meaningful when used with the -u option.
CApath, --verifydir=CApath
This option is similar to the -l option, but specifies the path of a directory with CA certificates in it. When this option is used, “SSL_CTX_set_client_CA_list(ctx,SSL_load_client_CA_file())” is not called, so a list of CA names might not be passed to the client during the TLS handshake.
CRLfile, --crl=CRLfile
This option specifies a Certificate Revocation List (CRL) file that is to be loaded into the verify certificate store and checked during verification. This option is only meaningful when either the -l or -p have been specified.
, --certuser
This option specifies that if the client provides a certificate that both verifies and has a subjectAltName with an otherName component of the form “otherName:1.3.6.1.4.1.2238.1.1.1;UTF8:user@domain” where “domain” matches the one for this server, then the daemon will attempt to map “user” in the above to a user credential <uid, gid_list>. There should only be one of these otherName components for each “domain”. If “user” is a valid username in the password database, then the <uid, gid_list> for “user” will be used for all RPCs on the mount instead of the credentials in the RPC request header. This option requires the -m and either the -l or -p options. Use of this option might not conform to RFC-9289, which does not allow certificates to be used for user authentication.
, --verbose
Run in verbose mode. In this mode, rpc.tlsservd will log activity messages to syslogd(8) using LOG_INFO | LOG_DAEMON or to stderr, if the -d option has also been specified.
, --multiwild
This option is used with the -h option to allow use of a wildcard “*” that matches multiple components of the reverse DNS name for the client's IP address. For example, the FQDN “*.uoguelph.ca” would match both “laptop21.uoguelph.ca” and “laptop3.cis.uoguelph.ca”.
, --singlewild
Similar to -W but allows the wildcard “*” to match a single component of the reverse DNS name. For example, the FQDN “*.uoguelph.ca” would match “laptop21.uoguelph.ca” but not “laptop3.cis.uoguelph.ca”. Only one of the -W and -w options is allowed.

The rpc.tlsservd utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

openssl(1), ktls(4), exports(5), ssl(7), mount_nfs(8), nfsuserd(8), rpc.tlsclntd(8), syslogd(8)

The implementation is based on the specification in Towards Remote Procedure Call Encryption By Default, RFC 9289.

The rpc.tlsservd manual page first appeared in FreeBSD 13.0.

This daemon cannot be safely shut down and restarted if there are any active RPC-over-TLS connections. Doing so will orphan the KERNEL_TLS connections, so that they can no longer do upcalls successfully, since the “SSL *” structures in userspace have been lost.

November 10, 2022 dev